1. Technical Field
The present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for user satisfaction assessment. Particularly, the present teaching is directed to methods, systems, and programming for evaluating user satisfaction with respect to a user session.
2. Discussion of Technical Background
Online content search is a process of interactively searching for and retrieving requested information via a search application running on a local user device, such as a computer or a mobile device, from online databases. Online search is conducted through a search system including search engines, which are programs running at a remote server and searching for content based on specified queries or keywords submitted by a user. A search result of an online search may include either a list of the documents or some content items provided to the user. To improve a user's searching experience with a search system, it is critical to evaluate the user's satisfaction regarding performance of the search system.
However, existing techniques are limited to evaluating user satisfaction with respect to each single query, although it is more desirable to evaluate a user's satisfaction regarding a user session that comprises a group of consecutive queries, especially when the queries in the user session are related to one topic that can reflect an information need of the user. In addition, traditional search system does not evaluate user satisfaction based on user activities related to manipulation of content items. For example, after a user enters a query and receives a content item related to the query on a touchscreen, the user performs some activities related to manipulation of the content item, including but not limited to pressing down the content item, swiping the content item, and zooming in or out the content item. While information related to these activities may be utilized to automatically determine or predict user satisfaction, traditional methods estimate user satisfaction merely based on labeling or bookmarking from the user regarding the content item.
Therefore, there is a need to provide an improved solution for evaluating user satisfaction to avoid the above-mentioned drawbacks.